• webinar •

Notes: Today's Good Word is a recent addition to the English language. It is now listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, the Collins English Dictionary, the Macmillan Dictionary—and it even has a place in Wikipedia. This word is so new, it has no relatives, but webinarist is already appearing on the Web.

In Play: You probably receive the occasional e-mail invitation to participate in webinars: "Did you receive the announcement of the webinar on how to make money with webinars?" The webinar is used mostly in the business world: "My company is having a webinar of all its employees tomorrow on how to prevent leaks of confidential information."

Word History: Today's Good Word is a blend of web + seminar. Web comes to us from Old English webb "woven fabric", related to wefan "to weave". Weevil and waffle, the pancake with a weave pattern on either side, are also related words. Finally, we have the verb wave, as to wave goodbye, a related word. Seminar comes from the same source as seminary: Latin seminarium "nursery, plant bed", the place where young plants are nourished before they can be set out on their own. This word is based on Latin semen, seminis "seed", itself a noun derived from the verb serere "sow". English sow shares a common origin with serere. (The seed for today's Good Word was sown by Daniel Obertance. I can only hope that you, kind reader, think it has flourished.)

"(W)ebinarist is already appearing on the Web." Indeed, here I am, a webenarist in your midst. Before I retired from practicing law I was invited to give a webinar followed by a lecture on the subject of Veterans' Law and benefits. Quite an experience, which went well enough they tell me. But with only a cyber audience to speak to, it's hard to guage how your words are being received. Are the attendees throwing cyber-tomatoes, clapping, what? You only learn later how you fared.

Have your professional linguists noted that we are in the midst of a birthing period for new words related to the internet and computing in general. I'm not trained in that field, but if I were, I would want to collect a long list of words invented in the last 30-40 years and track their development. It would be comparable to anthropologists studying primitive tribes to discover the sources of human behavior. Where and how are the words created. From devlopers at MS, Google, and Apple? Mostly from geeks or what catches on with users? I recently noted on Res Diversae synonyms for flash drive. We are probably close to a thousand or more. And since Doc did his take on dongle, i hear and use it more often.

I fared well. Not sure about the students! The hosts of the webinar told me it went well, but again without a live audience it's hard to judge. The live lecture which followed a week or two later was a hit, mostly because Veterans' law is a niche area which no one outside the field knows anything about.

Remember, Perry, that all those names for the little memory stick that have the word "drive" in them are factually in error. There are no moving parts to drive. It is solid state. Only the electrons move, and they are always moving everywhere else in the universe. The electrons in the memory stick are being channeled by an electric current through functional elements on integrated circuits. In my day, the challenge was to keep the memory stable when the power was removed. That problem was solved. I envision the elimination of all memories that depend on any kind of mechanical drive: no hard-drives, no CDs, no DVDs, just fast stick memories with many gigabytes of storage. I spent years on the bubble memory. We hoped it would solve the problem. Unfortunately, it never got off the ground.

Yes, someone should chronicle these new words in the electronics world. I predict that the portmanteau word "webinar" will have a short life. Geeks do not like seminars, preferring to work alone in their own little worlds. The general public will tire of the word after the novelty has worn off. I don't think a web conference has been called a weberence yet. And people are likely to discuss remote conferences with other words. The patented word Skype comes to mind. Skypinar?

Sere is an English adjective meaning unable to support agriculture. It is related to the word sear. Serere is a proper noun that names a place in Uganda, Africa. Serere is a verb form of the Latin verb serō which means to plant (seeds). Note, I am not a Latin scholar, I looked it up. There does not seem to be any connection, unless perhaps the place in Uganda was named for its sere environment. That doesn't seem likely.

With web browsers like Google, research is no sweat. Just enter the word "serere" and you have a number of references to search. It odesn't always work but it did with serere whi did not know. I already know sere.

I have lived long enough. My way of lifeIs fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf,And that which should accompany old age,As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,I must not look to have, but, in their stead,Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breathWhich the poor heart would fain deny and dare not.

Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 3

Not content with poetry, "sere" has traveled far afield to Ecology where it means "a natural succession of plant (or animal) communities, esp. a full series from uncolonized habitat to the appropriate climax vegetation."

I found this unexpected meaning of "sere" while looking for poetic usage, through serendipity.

Serendipity may be the best way to come upon knowledge. Thank you, MTC, for this expansion of the meaning of sere. I think it may be a less useful word for its expansion since it includes a variety or series of environments. But we cannot control the way of words. It is good to try to keep up with them.

You aren't suggesting that the etymology of sere is similar to that of series are you?